2nd Family Backpacking Trip: Big Santa Anita Canyon

We did it, we survived our 2nd family backpacking trip.  We went last week to Big Santa Anita Canyon in the Angeles Mountains outside of LA.  We chose that location because the boys and I went hiking there in April and were amazed by how much it reminded us of the East or the Midwest: it was so green, had thick shady tree cover in almost all of the canyon, and had ivy covering the canyon floors along the streams.  Because of the shade and water we thought that might be one of our best options in this area for July backpacking. 

We got all packed, and added a few more supplies to our collection of gear since our last trip -- a bear bag and some paracord to hang it in a tree with (since there are some black bears in the Angeles Mountains), and we repaired some of the hoses for some of the water backpacks.  We had three days set aside for the trip, and we were pretty excited.  Especially after I did a little research and found a few different swimming hole spots and cool hikes in that area.  Then, the day before we left, we found out it was going to be an unusually hot weekend -- up to 110 degrees, at least on top Mount Wilson, which is near where we were going.  But we hoped it wasn't going to be that hot down in the canyons and went for it anyway. 

It was hot, but the shade of the trees really did help.  (It usually felt more like 80s in the tree cover, even when it was upper 90s out in the direct sun).  It was pretty hot when we were hiking, but not too bad under the trees most of the time.  We hiked down a steep paved road into the canyon, and then it was all green and shady for most of the rest of the trip.  We hiked into Spruce Grove Trail Camp, a first come, first served remote campground where they don't have water (but there's a stream, so you can use a filter) and you have to hike in to the camp site.  We got there on Thursday, the day after 4th of July, so we weren't sure if it would be more crowded because of the holiday.  But we were the only ones in the campsite until people started filling up all the spots on Saturday morning.  That was nice, because it allowed us to use all the trees around the different sites for the 5 hammocks that we wanted to use. 

Oh, and there were deer there that were pretty used to humans.  More than once we saw deer along the trail that didn't seem too startled to see us.  Then when we walked into camp there was a deer that just stood there and looked at us, and then followed us into the camp.  And it came back again the next day to check us out, walking up within about 10 feet of us before walking away up another canyon. 

We set up camp and the boys played a little by starting to make a little dam in the stream.  Then we went and hiked back down the trail and walked downstream until we found a nice little deep pool to take a dip.  It was hot out, and the water was very cold. 

The next day we set out and explored up the East Fork, an area that doesn't have trails so there's a lot of boulder hopping to get up the canyon.  We didn't see anyone else up there the whole time.  It looked pretty dry, but we eventually found a couple of swimming holes.  We all jumped in after a while, and I couldn't believe how quickly we dried off in the heat.  We went all the way to the waterfall (the first one, that we read was supposed to be about 75 feet tall).  The waterfall was just a trickle, so it wasn't too impressive, but the swimming hole was nice.  I think it'd be really cool to explore up there after a heavy rainfall! 

That night we were tired, and it was hotter than the night before, and the mosquitos were terrible.  Of course we ran out of bug spray after our first day there, which made our time in the camp on the 2nd & 3rd days kind of miserable.  Once dinner was done on Friday and the bear bag was up in the tree, we retired to the tent and the hammocks.  But the mosquito net over the hammock was just enough to make it hot and sweaty, just laying there.  But the mosquitos were just annoying enough to keep me in the mosquito net.  It was pretty hard to get to sleep that night. 

The next morning we powered through the mosquitos as we packed up camp.  Now looking back on it, it almost seems humorous to think of Camden yelling out load frustrated moans every few minutes for about an hour while we did breakfast, packed everything up, and filtered all the water for all our packs, (but needless to say it wasn't very humorous at the time). 

We got all packed up, and hauled our tired, hot selves out of the canyon.  Our plan was to hike up to the car and leave our backpacks there, then just take our day packs and hike the short hike from the car to Hermit Falls, one last swimming place that we hadn't made it to on this trip yet.  But that last 1 mile stretch uphill with no tree cover while carrying all our gear took all the energy out of us.  When we got up the hill to our car, it said it was 105 degrees!  We were done.  At that point we decided to cancel our planned backpacking overnighter in August, and wait until late Fall or Winter before scheduling our next backpacking adventure in Southern California.  And we found a Costco on the way home, where the boys all enjoyed the food court food & the cool air conditioning before our drive home.